Friday, October 31, 2008

Here's a picture from a few years ago. Cute, right? For some reason I can't find one more recent. This will be the first year my daughter (now in high school) is not trick or treating. My son (still in middle school) will be going out tonight dressed as a skull head rocker. Fun, right? My daughter and I will be going to the high school football game where we will meet up with her boyfriend. Should be interesting as it is now officially fall in Oregon which means rain. Lots of it. Checked the extended forecast this morning and it looked pretty wet all weekend into next week.

On another note, I promised to show you what I got at the Portland Expo last Friday. First off, I showed up at the Expo Center parking lot at 6am where I set up to sell some stuff I just threw in my car last minute. This stuff was pretty much leftovers from when I cleaned out my booth. Good stuff, just tired of looking at it. I managed to sell a few things which meant I had money to shop when the doors opened at 10am. Here is a picture of my well organized stuff in the parking lot.

I promised I would help Isabel get her booth set up which didn't take too long and then I was off for a few hours of shopping.

My first find was these pillows. Kind of scungy looking, but they look much better now that I gave them a good soak. I love ticking feather pillows, but down are my favorite. I may sell these, haven't decided yet.Next I got a pretty vintage crinoline. This I will save for Farm Chicks. I then found this adorable little side table with two drawers for a great price. Another item I would love to keep, but I would have to get rid of something else. The little wallpaper box on top came from Sue.

I also got these awesome Glen Court Barkcloth drapes from Sue. I love them. They too received a good soak and came out beautifully. I have a large panel just like these, but with a blue background that I have been debating on whether to sell or not. It is the last of a total of 6 panels. I sold the first 5 on ebay awhile back and I thought I would keep the last one to cut up for pillows and such. Just haven't had the heart to do it though. The panels I got from Sue.

My last remaining panel with blue background

My last purchase at Expo was this roll of lovely wallpaper. I love the aqua color and vintage wallpaper in pretty prints is always something I buy if I can find it at a good price which this one was. From the same dealer I got another vintage silver ladies watch (not shown) to add to my already large collection.

While at Expo, my good buddy, Mitzi called. She said, "I'm at a sale in Newberg and you have to come. They have a ton of vintage crinolines." Now, just the week prior I had told Mitzi to be on the look out for crinolines for me. I had been having a really hard time finding them. I thought I would find them at thrift stores with all the Halloween costumes, but no. Not a one. Well, I drove straight to the sale after I left Expo and was so pleased to see they were still open. The ladies there said, "you must be the can-can lady," which I thought was kind of strange, but oh well. They had a ton of cool old crinolines, but I just picked out the very best ones. They gave me a little bit of a deal on them and then I found another really cute one in need of repair that I had to add to the pile. I also found a cute vintage hat with awesome flowers and a cool old shopping cart (or "granny cart" as Mitzi would say). Apparently these gals used to have a costume store many years ago. They put all of their inventory in a storage unit where it has sat for a long time. They now live in Kansas, but came out to clear out their unit.

It was kind of hard to capture how cute these crinolines are, but here are a couple piles of them.

And the Minnie Pearl hat.

To say I was thrilled to find out about this sale and to score all those awesome crinolines would be an understatement. Thanks again Mitzi for being such a good friend. (She also found three more carts for me and says she will continue to buy them for me until I say stop-Yikes!)

Well, I hope you enjoyed my finds from last weekend. I want to thank those that left comments on my last post about my picture in Artful Blogging. I really appreciate all the blog love you sent my way.

Next up, The All Saints Bazaar on Saturday, November 8th. I'll get the address up on my next post and show a little preview of what I will be taking. Better get busy!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A few months ago I got an email from one of the editors of Artful Blogging Magazine saying that they wanted to use one of my pictures in their next issue. They were doing an article on Tiffany's "Show Me Your Form" challenge and they wanted to use one of the photos I used for that challenge.

Last week I got my copy in the mail and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see this.

Isabel was over and we quickly flipped through the magazine looking for this.

Turned the page to find this...my picture.

I can't tell you how excited I am to have my picture in a magazine. I know it's not a whole article or anything, but I don't care. I know I'm probably making a big deal over something little, but I still don't care. I'm stoked! It doesn't take much to make this gal happy.

To make it even better, also included in this issue is one of my favorite bloggers, Heather from Pretty Petals. Her article features a picture of the "junque in my trunk" swap gifty she gave me. If you want to see what was inside you can see it here.

So, contratulations to Tiffany and Heather and all the other artful bloggers in this issue. It's a good one full of fabulous eye candy.

On my next post I will tell you about the Portland Antique Expo I went to last Friday and show you the fun things I found. Have an awesome Tuesday!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

On my weekly run over to Monticello Monday, I stopped at my usual thrifting haunts. I debated whether I should as I had a lot to do at home and I kind of wanted to make it a quick trip over. However, I'm really glad I did take the time to stop. Here's what I scored on Monday's thrifting adventures.

I found not one, but two shopping carts, two cute little shelves, a cute little chandelier type thing someone made out of wire fencing and some flowers, a cute laura ashley lamp shade, sweet little cottage style glass lamp, a little wood tray and an awesome bench which you know, will receive one of my shabby chic makeovers. I love the size of it. I think it would be adorable at the foot of a bed, under a window or even in front of a fireplace for additional seating. The possibilities are endless!

I also found these cute linens. I really don't know why I'm still buying linens. I have so many, but I just love them and can't pass them up if they are cheap. I especially love the little fork and knife holders.

Yesterday Isabel came over and we had a sewing day. She is getting ready for her sale this weekend at the Portland Expo Center. She made some gorgeous totes that she will be taking to the sale. I'll be going over with her on Friday to help her get set up and do a little early buying.

What did I work on yesterday, you ask? Well, my pile of shopping carts is getting out of control so I made a couple liners.

Here is the one I made yesterday. I think it turned out so pretty, but then, I say that about all my liners. Modest, aren't I? But seriously, I do spend a lot of time picking out fabrics for each cart. I want them to be so cute that people will just be amazed at how adorable they are and have to have one for themselves. My plan seems to be working as they seem to sell as fast as I can make them.

The fabric I used on this one is some that I bought recently at JoAnn's. You may remember I showed the pile here.

This one I finished up this morning. The picture doesn't do it justice. I think the lighting is off. But if you click on it, you can get a better idea on the fabric I used. White with pink roses on the outside, pink with white polka dots on the inside. Don't you just love polka dots? I do.

This weekend my MIL will be coming for a visit so I need to clean up the guest room. Fortunately since we had visitors not too long ago it isn't too bad. It will be nice to see her again and have her here to help celebrate my youngest's 13th birthday which is on Friday.

I have a surprise that I have been keeping secret for awhile now that I want to share with you. Something came in the mail yesterday that has me "tickled pink." I promise to let you know about it soon.

Monday, October 20, 2008

I may have used that title before, but that is exactly how I would describe this last weekend. On Friday, after dropping the kids at school, I headed out to a few garage sales and estate sales. I arrived at one about 20 minutes before opening and found out that there was a list. I weaved my way through the crowd and got my name down.

I have to tell you that I don't go to many estate sales. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with them, in fact. This is why. If you're not one of the first people in the house, you usually don't get to have the good stuff and even worse you have to see the good stuff walking out with other people. If I can't be the first in the door, then I like to come later when I can't see what I have missed. This particular sale had a most gorgeous antique dress form that I would have happily plopped down my hard earned cash for, but alas, it had a sold sticker on it. I hate those stickers too. ha ha

I did manage to find a few goodies there though. After that I boogied on over to a few more sales and found a few more things. I was really good and didn't buy any furniture, but I did lament over a very cool dresser with hand painted roses. It was $55 and needed quite a bit of work. In hind site, I sort of wish I got it as it was so lovely, but I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy, thank you very much!

I was almost home when I got a call from Mitzi telling me that she was at a sale where there were some beautiful rose paintings so I headed on over. By the time I got there Mitzi and Karen were just getting ready to leave, but went back into the house with me to take a look.

Unfortunately, they were not paintings but prints. I have seen these before. I think they are put out by gallery graphics or some such company. The only one I was really interested in was a small one for $5.00 which was actually a color copy of a painting, but I didn't care, it had a cute frame and the picture was still pretty. I also found an adorable antique dress while there. After we left the sale we were super hungry so we went to the new Sonic in Wilsonville which I just discovered was there recently. It was such a beautiful sunny day, so we sat outside and ate.

Here are the pictures of my Friday haul.

As I mentioned in previous posts, Saturday was the season finale sale at Barn House so Isabel and I got up early. We actually headed over to a sale Joy told us about first. I'm sorry, but I forget the name of the sale. Something like Vintage Treasures. Anyway, we got there way early and stood in line with a few others including Joy and Sheila. One sweet gal, Michelle, came up to us to tell us that she reads our blogs. Michelle, if you're reading this, it was so nice meeting you.

Anyway, here we are waiting patiently for the doors to open. Having never been to this sale, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was pretty much like a mini flea market with each person having their own space. Silly me forgot to stop at the bank so I didn't have any cash and I didn't feel like writing checks for tiny amounts. I did end up getting one thing. This little cabinet for $6.

Next, we headed over to Barn House. We weren't sure we were going in the right direction, but we were and we were so happy to see this wonderful place. We haven't been able to go to any of their shows since the Flea Market in July due to other commitments, so it was nice to see J & J again and their wonderful sale was just fabulous. Here are a few pictures I snapped. Check out Isabel and Joy's blogs to see more fun pictures of this fabulous event.

Of course since we arrived a little late, I'm sure we missed out on lots of goodies as we were told they had a huge line out front before opening, but we didn't care. It gave us time to chat and visit and have a leisurely look around. I only got one thing there. A black crinoline which I will give to my daughter for her birthday next month. She never reads my blog, so I don't have to worry about ruining the surprise.

As we were getting ready to leave to hit a few more sales, who should arrive but this sweet gal. I hadn't seen her since we first became BFF's at Farm Chicks in June. She and her two pals, Michelle and Donna, drove 4 hours just to come to the sale. Since we were just leaving, we told her where we were headed and were able to meet up with them a couple more times.At the next sale we went to, I ran into Tiffany of Shabby Scraps blog fame. You may remember (or not) that awhile back Tiffany did a "Show me your Dress Forms" challenge on her blog which I participated in. Tiffany was at the sale to pick up a bench she bought awhile back and was headed next to Barn House. I'm so glad we bumped into her as I really wanted to meet her in person. She is as adorable and sweet as she seemed to be on her blog. If you haven't ever checked out her blog, please do so and drop a comment to tell her I sent you.

We eventually ended up at Monticello where we picked up a bunch of stuff for Isabel to take to the Portland Antique Expo she is doing next weekend. I was pleased to see a few furniture items of mine had sold. I will be heading back today to fill in the gaps.

Last night the hubby and I took our daughter, her new boyfriend (a whole other post) and a couple of their friends to a concert in Portland. We thought we would just drop them off, go have a nice dinner and maybe see a movie and then pick them up and take them home. It all went according to plan. We had a lovely dinner at Jake's, walked around downtown Portland and saw "Eagle Eye" ( okay, not great), and browsed books in Powell's until 11:00pm. They finally got out of the concert at midnight! Ugh! We had no idea it would last that long and on a school night. I feel like the worst parent ever. We ended up getting home at 1:00am and now we are all pretty much dragging. I think a wee nap is on order for this afternoon. At least for me.

Well, that's about it. Sorry this was such a long and wordy post. I want to thank everyone who commented on my bathroom dilemma post. Some really great ideas for sure. I will keep you posted on what we end up doing in there.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

My husband keeps complaining about our master bath and how much he thinks we should redo it. Our house is not super old (only 12 years), but I can see his point. Here are some pictures I took a few weeks ago so you can get a better picture of what we are talking about. It was really hard getting some good shots as the bathroom is pretty small, but hopefully you will get the gist.

Shot taken from door of our master bedroom.

Here's what I do like about our bathroom. I love the neutral colors as I have a lot of color throughout my house. I love the antique chandelier I had my husband put in. That's about it. Not crazy about the carpet or the tile. The shower insert is the worst to keep clean. The tub, while nice and big, never gets used. It just collects dirt and hair. Ugh! Do you like all the mirrors that I have collected and never hung up. Well, since we've been talking about re-doing the bathroom for quite a while, I never saw the point if I would just have to take them all down again.

So, here's what we want to do. We want to take out the carpet and replace with some kind of tile. We want to completely re-do the shower, make it bigger which will mean taking out the tub. We will most likely keep the vanity, but replace the tile with something else, not sure what yet. Get new sinks and fixtures. Take down the giant mirror and replace with two smaller mirrors framed some how. Not sure what to do with the remaining space left by the tub. Maybe just leave a space for a cool old cabinet to hold bath supplies. I wanted to put in a built in vanity, but then we would have to monkey with electrical stuff and I'm not sure we want to go the the trouble for just one outlet.

My dilemma is this. While I love decorating, the design stuff, not so much. I guess I just lack the confidence to do it. I have checked out 20 plus books from the library on bath design and everything I've seen is either too fancy or too modern for my taste. I really just want to keep it simple, but elegant and most important, easy to keep clean. I don't want a WOW! bathroom, but an Ahhhh... bathroom. Does this make sense?

Some elements I would like to include if I can would be bead board (love it!), maybe some glass brick around the shower, white or cream subway tiles, hex tiles (but I've heard they are hard to keep clean) and maybe some kind of solid surface material for the vanity top. We don't really have a budget for this project. We plan on doing most of the work ourselves with the help of our contractor friend. Ideally we would like to do it this winter.

I am going to head over to Home Depot today to look at tile and other possibilities, but I would welcome any advice, suggestions from anyone who has gone through this. Please, I'm desperate! Okay, maybe not desperate, but I definitely could use some help.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A busy, but fun weekend for sure. Headed south on Saturday with our Washington friends to Corvallis and the big OSU/WSU game. The weather was sunny but cool. A perfect fall day. The game was awesome with the Beavs winning 66 to 13!

We were all pretty tired by the time we got home so we pretty much crashed. But I was up early on Sunday morning making breakfast for our guests. On the menu: Breakfast Casserole, Ritz Carlton Scones and Honey & Brown Sugar Sausages. Yummy!

After our guests left, my hubby said, "you worked so hard, cooking and cleaning, you should go have some fun." So, I went out looking for some estate and garage sales. (My favorite kind of fun.) I didn't find a lot of stuff, but a few things like an old chippy stool, some silver belt buckles (future project), a horse and buggy painting with ornate gold frame and some other small stuff I can't remember. Nothing picture worthy.

Does this ever happen to you? You buy a project piece of furniture and you have an idea of how it should look when complete, but by the time you finally get around to working on it, the end result is nothing like you planned and you're a little disappointed with how it turned out. Well, that has happened to me on more occasions than I care to mention. However, I did finally complete one of the chair makeovers that I showed in previous posts and I am happy to announce that I am thrilled with the end result. What do you think?

Here is an after picture.

And one with how the chair looked before. Quite a difference, right? Now, I just have to do three more.

Here's a close up of the seat fabric. I was going to use a different barkcloth fabric on each seat, but I have had this Ralph Lauren cotton/linen fabric for quite a while and I just love how it looks here. Very soft and kind of faded looking. It's nice and sturdy too, so I think it will wear well.

Yesterday Isabel and I had to go to Monticello to tear down our Harvest Sale booth. After lots of moving stuff around and packing up the older stuff I'm sick of looking at, I was able to completely redo my booth. Isabel too. Here are some pictures of our new and improved spaces.

Isabel's side

My side

I want to do a shout out to Laurie, aka Magpie Ethel, who I ran into yesterday at Goodwill. It was fun chatting with you. If you haven't been to visit Laurie yet, please do so. Her blog is filled with vintage goodness up the wazoo. We will both be doing the All Saints Christmas Bazaar on November 8th. I still need to get the specifics up on my sidebar and I promise to do it soon. I have never been before, but I hear it is a really good one with awesome vendors and yummy food.

Spent a few hours at the auction today. It has been a long time since I've gone and it was really fun. After filling my car yesterday I wasn't in a big buying mood, but I did manage to find a few things to bring home. I'll have to show you what I got on a future post. The rest of the week will be spent working on stuff around the house, but on Saturday, Isabel and I will be headed north to attend the last Barn House sale of the season. If you are going, let me know so I can make sure to look for you. Bye for now!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

On Tuesday I headed out early to the Washington County Court House to report for Jury Duty. My first time. There were a lot of people there, normal people, no weirdos or anything. Including my lunch lady friend, Donna, from the Middle School. We sat next to each other for the duration. There were four trials scheduled and after my number wasn't called for trials number 1-3, I thought it safe to go to the bathroom. When I got back, everyone left in the room was gone except Donna. She said trial #4 had settled and that we could go. I had mixed feelings about this as I knew I had lots of other things I could be doing this week, but I was kind of curious about how the whole jury thing worked. Oh well, I guess I will get another opportunity in two years.

Since I had the afternoon available I called my guy and he invited me to join him for lunch as he works nearby. I was actually headed to a couple antique shops in the area when I was talking to him, but decided to meet him at Chevy's for some lunch. Two lunch dates in two days is definitely a record for us.

After lunch I headed home, but of course I stopped at Goodwill on the way. I did actually find a few good things. Here are my purchases for that day.

I got the ceramic hand (will use to display bracelets and necklaces at shows), the pink and white dish towel and a flea market finds book(not pictured) at Le Stuff antique mall in Hillsboro. I usually buy pink dish towels whenever I find them as it is really hard to find pink dish towels new and I love the vintage linen ones like this one is. The girls crinoline slip, divided drawer and cowboy boots came from Goodwill. I found a couple white tops there too (also not pictured.)

Today I am going over to the high school with my friend Debbie for a tour of the new kitchen and to visit with my lunch lady buddies. It will be fun to see them again. I know it has been tough getting used to the new space, a few new faces, but knowing them, they are handling it like troopers.

Tomorrow I will be heading over to Joy's again to help her out a bit with her Harvest Open House. See Joy's blog for more details. If you are in the area, I will be there from 10am til noon. I'd love to meet you!

Wow, October is shaping up to be one busy month. No wonder I can't seem to get any projects done. On Saturday we are having friends over to spend the night after we go to the OSU Beavers game in Corvallis. We went to a game last year with the kids and decided it was so much fun we are making it an annual thing. This year we invited friend to join us. The following weekend I'll be heading up to Battleground to see my good buddies J & J. That's Joe and Jermonne in case you didn't already know that. They are having their season finale Barn House Gothic Harvest sale. Can't miss it!

The following weekend I will be helping Isabel get set up for the Portland Expo show. She will be there Friday thru Sunday. I'll only be there on Friday. My sweet MIL will be visiting for my son's 13th birthday that weekend. He will be 13 on the 24th. Ugh! I keep telling him to stop growing up, but like any normal teenager, he just won't listen to me.

Well, I'm going to leave you now with a little sneaky peak of something I'm trying to work on. I hope to show you the final results soon. But don't hold your breath. ha ha

Monday, October 6, 2008

My main squeeze was out of town this weekend and just happened to be coming home at the same time I was headed to Monticello today so we made a plan to meet up there and have a bite to eat. While there I was able to do a little cleaning and drop off a few new vintage items. We have only one week left in the garden room and then we have to tear down and decide what will go where. Here are some pictures of the garden room booth.

Even though we have sold quite a few things, as you can see, we still have lots left. If you're in the area, I highly recommend a visit to Monticello to check it out.

Here are a few things I brought in today.

Cute little victorian couple lamp.

Vintage doll bed found at the Polk County Flea Market and Roses Painting which sold before I even left Monticello today. Yippee!

Cute vintage child's scooter.

Last week I stopped by my good friend Bobbie's house to look at some shelves she wanted to give to me and came home with this cutie instead. I just love the chippy paint.

This will be going to a Christmas Bazaar I'll be doing next month. I will get the info and put it on my sidebar soon.

Finally, here is a picture of my thrifted finds from today. I stopped at the Goodwill (nothing), Deseret Shop (vintage pillowcases, wire baby buggy, vintage mail box), Value Village (wood shelf, wood hangers which I gave to Isabel, ironing thingy, santa chocolate mold, pie/plate stand) and finally the Red White and Blue store (vintage wicker table, pink roses sheets and neato coffee table). Not a bad day thrifting I think. Much better than I have been doing lately, that's for sure.

Click for a better view of items.

I haven't forgotten that I promised to show you my chair makeover. Unfortunately it has been raining a lot here lately and I haven't been able to paint. Hopefully we'll get a break in the weather and I can get at least one done to show.

I may or may not have jury duty this week. Need to call in a few minutes to confirm whether I go or not tomorrow. I have never had jury duty so I'm kind of interested to see what it's like. If I don't get to go, that will be all right too. Got lots of projects that are calling my name. Have a great week!